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I may chat about my books, what I'm writing or reading, or just general thoughts. You may read posts about my cats or just my crazy life in general. Comments are welcome, if anyone wants to interact with me. Maybe we can share war stories, whether it's writing related or just about life in general.

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Bears and Blueberries

The only time I’ve ever come face-to-face with a bear was
when I lived in Alaska. It was summer, that wonderful short time
between June and the middle of August.

Fruits and veggies grow at a fast rate in Alaska because the growing season is so
short and the days are extremely long.
Not far out of Anchorage,
toward the Alyeska ski resort, there are hills of wild blueberries in the
summers. The path is marked by what is
barely recognizable as a trail wondering off into the woods. We had to park on the shoulder of the highway
and hike about two miles. Once we
climbed the embankment, the whole area was covered with blueberry bushes. It didn’t take long to fill the buckets we
packed up the hill with the juicy, sweet berries.

Photo by Nature Pics

As we discovered, black bears also loved this treat. We stumbled upon a mama bear and her two cubs
on one such outing. I wish I had a
camera with me, but of course, bears were the last thing on my mind.

We slowly backtracked with not many berries that day. She only looked at us and didn’t advance, but
we kept our distance. I wasn’t
frightened at all, only awed at the scene before me.

Every summer we made several trips to this same place and
never saw another bear.

I would have been terrified! I once spotted a bear on the side of the road on the way to a campsite. I literally wanted to turn around and go home. Then when we got to the campsite, signs were posted all over about a mama bear and her cubs. I simply could not enjoy the trip after that. I love the pics of all your kitties! Koki looks like my cat, Sam, who passed away three years ago. We still miss him!

We don't really get bears where I'm at, but we get a ton of deer. We would get dear in the backyard, just on the other side of the fence, at the daycare center I worked at all the time. The kids would go running to the fence yelling "DEER! DEER!" which would, of course, scare the deer away.

This reminds me of the book Blueberries for Sal. Loved that book when I was growing up!

The only time I have ever been that close to a bear was once when we were camping on a family trip. (Somewhere in Alberta maybe? one of the Canadian provinces...) The bear wondered into the campground between my siblings and I and our camp site. We made a lot of noise and tried to stay calm. Eventually he ambled away and let us get back to our tent for dinner!

I love being able to see bears in the wild. I live in Idaho so we cross paths with black bears pretty frequently when in the back country. They're just amazing. I try to watch from the safety of a vehicle or the buffered distance afforded by a zoom lens, though.